


time doesn't mean much to me (if you're not my girl)

by oneworldaway



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Dancing Lessons, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, bed sharing, but they're a new ship and they DESERVE all the tropes!, canon typical light stalking, fixing their future, future Grace is older when she meets Dani in this, in this house we write hopeful endings only, just as Dani sets out to do in the end, throwing all the tropes I want at them because I'm a hack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21517717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneworldaway/pseuds/oneworldaway
Summary: It’s what they do: trust each other when they have no reason to do so. Protect each other. Know each other, but not always at the same time.
Relationships: Dani Ramos & Sarah Connor, Grace/Dani Ramos
Comments: 31
Kudos: 248





	time doesn't mean much to me (if you're not my girl)

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: My friend Punk helped me tremendously with the dialogue taken from the movie itself, which I couldn’t possibly remember as accurately as they did. [Megan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcrawler/pseuds/Shadowcrawler) was there for a ton of consultation and gay yelling, and to save my life with some AO3 formatting tips while I've been working on getting this posted. Both of them helped me out with some small corrections, as well. ♡
> 
> Title taken from the Tokyo Police Club song "Not My Girl," which is a little too upbeat for this fic, but I just couldn't resist finally using that line for something.

_“Nothing happens,” says Grace. “There’s no warning. Day one: everything just stops. No phones, no power, cities go dark. They told us we had to leave, just until things went back to normal. I was supposed to be moving away for college, so at least all my stuff was packed. But I never made it to my first year. No one did. The normal was never coming back. Day two, they launched nukes. They thought they could contain Legion with tactical EMP strikes. And by day three, the whole world was at war.”_

  
  
  


_freesia._

They’ve already changed things. Grace told them she never got the chance to start college, but now she’s partway through her second year, taking sociology and English literature. Something they’ve done—Dani and Sarah, and Grace, when she was still here—has altered the timeline Grace established. It’s already happening differently. But Sarah never looks relieved, and with good reason. She’s averted Judgment Day once before, after all. If Legion is no less of a formidable opponent than Skynet, then they can only operate on the assumption that their work is not yet done.

So they keep going, from town to town, tracking reports of violent attacks that lead them to Terminators—some from Skynet, some from Legion. They get there later than Sarah would like, now that Carl isn’t there to text her anymore. But they get there, and they do what they can. It doesn’t feel like enough, and Dani aches when they travel too far from California, where Grace is safe at school, for now, none the wiser.

She goes to see her, once, not long after watching her die. She sits in her car across the street from Grace’s apartment and waits, until she begins to feel like a creep and makes to drive away. (She thinks Grace would be proud of her if she saw her driving now, but even this thought makes her chest hurt.) She’s about to pull away from the curb when Grace emerges, looking exactly like Dani remembers her and completely different all at once. She watches her walk down the street, book bag slung over her shoulder, until she disappears around a corner, and then Dani pulls her keys back out of the ignition and cries until she can hardly breathe.

She comes back to the motel in a kind of fury, insisting she and Sarah go out right now and stake out the next place they’ve predicted a Terminator might hit. She paces the tiny room in a rage, all desperation and panic, until Sarah has to grab her by the shoulders to stop her.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” says Sarah, and Dani wants to scream. “We need to be rational.”

“Do _not_ tell me I’m being irrational,” Dani spits. “I know what we have to do. We have to save Grace.”

“What is it with you two and your mutual saviour complex?” asks Sarah rhetorically.

“She gave her life for me!” Dani is yelling now. “There’s no paying her back for that. There is no other option. I have to save her. I have to stop it.”

“We have to stop the end of the world,” says Sarah. “Or have you forgotten that this is about more than her? In the future, you felt strongly enough to send her back—”

“And I will _never_ do that again.”

“You can’t know that,” says Sarah. “Until you’re there, you can’t know what you’d do to protect the world, or to protect the ones you love.”

“I know exactly what I’d do for the ones I love,” says Dani. “I’m doing it right now.”

Sarah stares her down, something in her expression finally shifting. “Oh,” she says at last. “So that’s what.”

It’s hard for Dani to imagine not loving Grace. She tried to pinpoint the moment it started, once, but she realized that trying to fit what existed between them within the constraints of time as she knew it didn’t make much sense, seeing as Grace had obliterated its boundaries to come back and find her. But she hates to think that she didn’t realize she loved Grace until she was dying for her. She tries not to think of this beginning, but of how they’ll start again, one day. She thinks of the future, and how this time, she will write them a different ending.

  
  


~

  
  


“What did you want to do?” asks Sarah one night, when it’s too quiet and they’re both in danger of letting their grief catch up to them if they don’t fill the space with something else.

“What?” asks Dani, confused.

“Before all this,” says Sarah. “What did you want to do with your life?”

Dani’s surprised by the question. Sarah doesn’t normally ask her anything about her life before. Sarah doesn’t talk much at all, unless it’s about the mission. But more than that, Dani’s taken aback because she hasn’t had the chance to think about her old dreams in what already feels like a very long time. It’s as though the scope of her life has narrowed itself to two goals: surviving, and protecting Grace.

But as she thinks about it, Dani softens. “I wanted to go back to school to study botany,” she tells Sarah. 

Sarah huffs out a laugh, more out of surprise than anything. “Seriously?”

“As long as I can remember, I’ve loved flowers,” she explains. “I got that from my mother. She always kept fresh flowers around when I was little. One time when I was five, she took me to see the botanical gardens close to where she grew up. Diego was too little, so it was just me and her. She said it was her favourite place in the world, and as soon as I saw it, I told her it was mine, too. I had no idea anything could be so beautiful.” She sighs fondly. “That was the last time we got to do anything together like that before she got sick.”

“I’m sorry,” says Sarah, gently, but Dani shakes her head. It’s an old hurt, now, and the pain has mostly faded in favour of the love for her mother she’s eager to keep alive. It’s different from thinking about Diego or her father, losses she’s still scarcely had the time to truly grieve.

“When I was a kid I always said I wanted to have my own flower shop,” she goes on. “But then in school I realized that I loved biology, and I started wanting to study plants more closely. I used to dream that someday, I’d discover a new flower and name it after my mother.”

“She’d like that,” says Sarah, a flicker of uncharacteristic tenderness in her voice.

“What about you?” asks Dani. “What did you want to do before everything that happened to you?”

Sarah squints against the late afternoon sunlight peeking through the gap in the motel room’s musty curtains. “I don’t remember,” she says simply. She meets Dani’s eyes, then, with a hard look, but not an unkind one. “Hold onto those memories, Dani. Don’t forget the person you were before.”

Dani understands. She lets the silence fall between them again, and she lets her thoughts drift back to her mother, warming her from the inside in a way she hasn’t allowed herself to feel for some time.

  
  


~

  
  


_“You know me,” says Dani. “In the future.” It’s more a statement than a question._

_“Yeah,” says Grace, looking at her like no one ever has. “I_ know _you. You were the one who found me in the ruins, that day. You saved me, and you taught me to hope. And together we rose up and took our world back. You changed scavengers into militias and militias into an army. Dani, you are not the mother of some man who’s going to save the future. You are the future. And you and I, we…”_

_“We what?” asks Dani._

_Grace wavers, pulling back just a fraction of an inch. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”_

  
  


~

  
  


She sits in a bar just off campus, sipping her beer in the corner, tucked away among the swathes of college students. Grace and her friends are seated closer to the bar, talking and laughing. Grace is 20, now, so she must have used a fake ID to get in. But then, so did Dani. She has a litany of aliases already, and most of the time she hates them all. Hiding is a necessity, but it makes her feel so far away from herself and her old life—from her brother, her father. Sometimes pretending to be someone else helps, but the reality of it always hits her again, and with it comes the guilt of having lived when they didn’t, and of allowing herself to stop remembering them for even a moment.

Tonight she’s Andrea Montalvo, a regular student with nothing better to do than go out to a bar on a Friday night. She supposes that much is true, because there’s nowhere in the world she’d rather be right now than here, and nothing could be more important.

Even from across the room, she can see Grace’s eyes twinkling as she listens to another girl talk, utterly wrapt. The girl’s arm brushes against Grace’s, and Dani watches the warring emotions that play over her face, fear and curiosity and a strange calmness all there in the same look. It makes Dani’s insides twist and her heart ache, because along with everything else, she sees hope. With no idea of the future that has now become Dani’s past, Grace radiates an endearingly nervous energy and an overwhelming sense of hope, a feeling Dani wants to wrap herself and Grace both in like a blanket. She never wants Grace to lose that hope, even—especially—as she’s fighting to hold onto her own.

She’s tried not to stare too obviously, but it’s almost impossible to do anything else. Grace’s presence seems to fill the room, and much as her heart may have raced at her first glimpse of her, more than anything she feels...peaceful. Distantly, she registers the fact that the last time she felt almost safe going to sleep was with her head in Grace’s lap, and she wonders if she’ll ever get a good night’s sleep again without Grace there to hold her. She doesn’t dwell on the many _whys_ this feeling should dredge up.

So she watches Grace, not really thinking about it, or thinking at all, just letting herself feel her nearby, until Grace meets her eyes from across the room, too suddenly for Dani to react. She cannot pretend that she wasn’t looking, so she doesn’t bother trying. She knows she should look away, shouldn’t interfere with this beautiful, normal moment in Grace’s life, but she can’t seem to break this contact. But what does it mean that Grace doesn’t look away, either? She holds Dani’s gaze for a moment that might as well stretch into eternity, no emotion wholly discernible beyond a curious confusion. Dani finds _trust_ in that look, and it bowls her over completely.

It’s what they do: trust each other when they have no reason to do so. Protect each other. _Know_ each other, but not always at the same time. Grace waited for her to catch up the whole short time she knew her; now she waits for Grace.

One of Grace’s friends says something that pulls her attention away once more, and Dani sighs, remembering to breathe again. She catches Grace looking her way once more, but she knows she needs to leave now that she’s been seen. She makes her way through the crowd of students and outside quickly and silently, the way she’s learned to move wherever she goes these days. Sarah would be proud of her stealth, maybe. She’s not sure how she feels about these ways she’s had to change, herself. Sometimes she mourns those dreams she used to have for her life, the ones she can feel slipping away, but the needs that have replaced them are so urgent.

The cold, crisp air outside is soothing after the heat of the bar and the entirely different heat that has washed over her in the last couple of moments, and Dani remembers to stop and be grateful that she’s here to feel it. It’s thanks to Grace that she still lives and breathes and feels at all, but the cost is too much for her to bear. She’ll do whatever it takes to keep Grace here in this life with her, to feel the wind and see the stars that Dani knows, even on a night like this, are hidden somewhere above the clouds.

  
  


~

  
  


For her final act as Andrea Montalvo, before she and Sarah blow town and toss their latest IDs, she sends Grace flowers. Dani read a lot about the language of flowers when she was younger, and she remembers pink roses are supposed to mean “grace,” but they don’t feel like Grace somehow. There was something else she read once, though, about freesias. Some say they signify trust, and that alone would be more than fitting, but there was another meaning, too: “grace under pressure.” 

So she sends her freesias. She doesn’t add a message, save for Grace’s name, and she only hopes they’ll remind Grace how cherished she truly is.

  
  
  
  
  


_galanthus._

Judgment Day comes, as quiet and brutal as Grace once described it. Just like that, the whole grid goes down, and for all their preparation, Dani doesn’t feel quite ready. In theory, they’ve prepared for it to happen any day, but Dani has hoped they’ve been making more of a difference, buying themselves more time. When they wake up to the sound of a massive pileup in the intersection outside, Sarah looks at her stoically, and Dani feels her heart drop.

They’re too far away from Grace. Clear on the other side of the country. It wasn’t supposed to happen this soon.

It takes them weeks. The loss of power and communications is bad enough, but when the nuclear strikes begin, they have to go underground. Sarah nearly has to drag her off the road, because all she can think of is getting to Grace. “If you die here, everything she did for you will be for nothing.” She knows Sarah is right. It doesn’t make it any easier to wait.

In truth, every day they survive is a victory. But Dani doesn’t really feel alive again until they find a way to start moving, even if it’s slow going and there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to find Grace where she thinks they will. Grace only had time to tell her a little about her past, but she knows Grace and her family wound up somewhere outside Denver the first time around. Much as she’s prayed for things to be different this time, it’s all she has to go on, so they make their way to Colorado. Sarah never questions it, backing her up all the way, and she’s more grateful than she could ever say.

Judgment Day comes on the first day of summer, June 21st. They reach Denver sometime in early September, and Dani’s hardly sleeping. She doesn’t know what’s guiding her, but she follows the steady beating of her heart through tunnels and down abandoned streets, until she and Sarah arrive at the last library standing in what’s left of the burning city.

Grace mentioned a place like this, and Dani’s sure it’s the right one. She can’t say how she knows, but she knows.

She finds Grace asleep on the floor between two rows of bookshelves, using a tattered backpack as a pillow. She looks sort of silly, trying to curl up on the floor with her long limbs, and Dani nearly laughs in delight and relief and overwhelming love. She almost doesn’t hear the pair of men sneaking in behind them—almost, but her instincts have become more finely honed by now. Dani and Sarah fight off their would-be assailants without issue, but Grace wakes up in the commotion, and the fear in her eyes when they meet Dani’s threatens to break Dani’s heart.

She drops to her knees in front of Grace. “Come with me,” is all she says.

The suspicion in Grace’s look morphs into something more puzzled. “Do I know you?” she asks.

Dani smiles, for the first time in what feels like years. “Not yet.”

  
  


~

  
  


She has nightmares. It strikes her as odd that they should come more frequently now that Grace is with her again than they did before. It’s like she’d turned her emotions off, or at least down, while she was waiting for Grace, but now she’s here and it’s all been turned up to 100. She can’t shut off her worrying, or her love, or her guilt, and she can’t tell Grace about any of it. But she wonders if she sees right through her; there’s a way Grace’s eyes search hers that makes her feel exposed, and she fears all her secrets are on full display, much as she wishes she could tell Grace everything.

So when they go to sleep at night, she dreams again and again of Grace dying in her arms, sees herself always covered in Grace’s blood, hears her own cries set against Grace’s soft, small moans. Sometimes the dream changes, and she sees Diego and her father blown up in the nuclear strikes, or Grace attacked by someone who hasn’t realized that the humans eating their own is exactly what the machines want. Time collapses in her dreams, and she sees the Rev-9 barrelling toward them now, killing everyone she’s ever loved in front of her in one fell swoop, before turning to her to finish the job.

Usually, she can handle herself. She buries her face in her pillow or hides in the bathroom and waits for the waves of heartbreak and terror to pass. Normally, she can keep Grace from hearing her, or so she thinks. This time is different. The dream feels so unbearably real, Diego and Grace both struck down so brutally by the Terminator who took them both from her, that she wakes up with a shout, and Grace sits bolt upright in a panic.

“Dani?” she asks, and Dani can tell Grace is still jittery after all those weeks spent just trying to survive, first with her parents, then on her own. Grace isn’t as used to life or death as she is, yet, and she feels bad for startling her.

“It’s fine,” she pants out. “Go back to sleep.”

“You are not fine,” says Grace, and she’d almost feel annoyed by how well Grace already knows her if she didn’t love her so much for it.

“It was just a bad dream,” says Dani.

The one time she had a really bad one before Judgment Day, Sarah sat on the edge of her bed until she fell back to sleep, brushing her thumb over the back of Dani’s hand once or twice. She didn’t say anything, but it was more than enough. Sarah could be anywhere, now; it’s hard to keep in touch in an apocalypse. She left to help a small group that planned to free a prison camp, and Dani and Grace had wished her well. Dani knows that Sarah is a hero, and any team is lucky to have her on their side. She misses her, but she knows it’s for the best. And there’s a part of her that’s relieved to be spending this time alone with Grace, now, even as she’s equally terrified, unsure how to act around her.

“I have them, too,” says Grace. “Most nights, actually. That’s how I know you’re not fine. I’m not, either.”

Dani says nothing. She tries to hide her face as she sniffles, but before she knows what’s come over her, she’s hit by a wave of tears. All the grief, all the fear crashes into her at once, and she can only ride it out, feeling almost outside of her own body as it’s wracked with violent sobs.

But she begins coming back to herself when she feels Grace sit down next to her and wrap her in her arms, enveloping her in that familiar warmth she knew for just a moment, such a long time ago. So she lets go, holding onto Grace for dear life, the way Grace held her, once, soaking Grace’s shirt with her tears. She lets it all out until she isn’t even crying out of anguish, anymore. It feels like a homecoming, here with Grace. It’s peace, in the middle of an endless war. She starts to feel settled in a way she couldn’t have hoped for a moment earlier.

She feels Grace rubbing circles into her back, and she wants to say she loves her, but it wouldn’t be right. She sits in the moment, instead, as they hold each other and remember what it’s like to feel at home.

In the morning, she doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she wakes up with Grace’s arm draped protectively over her, and smiles as she listens to Grace’s steady breathing. She feels well-rested for the first time in ages.

  
  


~

  
  


When Grace told her she was the future, Dani wondered if she could really live up to all that. It seemed impossible to imagine herself leading an army. But the future catches up to her, the way it always does eventually, and Dani finds she’s capable of more than she ever realized.

It isn’t about the fighting, though Sarah helped her lots with that. It’s like Grace said—Dani has a knack for inspiring hope, even when she feels at risk of losing her own. Somehow, reminding other people what they’re fighting for helps Dani remember why she does it, too. So she keeps on talking to everyone she meets about the future that still lies ahead of them, and what they can all do to shape it. And as more and more people join their team, Dani finds she likes being a leader. The faith they put in her makes her feel stronger, and she knows that if they work together, they can all change their fate.

But this is different from the future Grace once described, because this time, Grace is by Dani’s side from the start. She was the first person Dani found after Judgment Day, and they’ve built this resistance together. Dani feels a little strange teaching Grace to defend herself, after everything Grace once did to protect her, but it only feels right to return the favour, and Grace is a fast learner. They’re learning together, really, as they both work to hone their skills in preparation for the attacks that can and do come at any moment. 

Dani learns a lot about Grace, too. Even when the world around them is falling apart, Grace picks up books wherever she can find them and tries to read a little whenever there’s a rare moment of quiet. She likes to tell Dani about the things she reads, and Dani always listens with rapt attention. Grace is shy in a way Dani’s never been, but she picks up on people’s emotions quickly, something Dani does, too. Maybe it’s why they work so well together. Dani treasures each little thing she learns about Grace, from the bad puns she likes to make to the funny little squeaks she makes in her sleep.

She’s loved Grace since she hardly knew her, but the feeling has only grown, and Dani can’t ever talk about it. They share a bed more often than not, when they have one to sleep in at all, both finding it helps keep their nightmares at bay, but they’ve never talked about it; Dani’s afraid that if they tried, everything she’s been holding back would come pouring out. It wouldn’t be fair to put that pressure onto Grace. But night after night, they hold each other as they sleep, and Dani’s not sure how she’d bear it if they ever stopped.

They lie awake, one night, both too nervous after a near-miss with a Legion drone strike earlier that day to truly relax and let sleep take over. Dani lies on her side, her back flush against Grace’s body, while Grace rests a hand lightly on Dani’s hip. “Can I ask you something?” Dani whispers.

“What?”

“What were you going to do after you finished school? If all this hadn’t happened.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Grace admits. “I thought I’d get through school and figure it out from there.”

“But did you have a dream?” asks Dani.

“Sometimes I thought about getting my masters in library science,” says Grace. “And I guess I used to think about writing a book someday. But that doesn’t matter now.”

Dani turns over to look at Grace, so fast Grace looks surprised. “It’s all that matters,” says Dani. “It’s why we’re fighting this war. Promise me you’ll never forget your dreams.” 

She holds Grace’s hand tightly, and there’s something in the look they share that Dani doesn’t dare name. Grace squeezes back, understanding. “Okay,” she swears.

They don’t let go of each other’s hands, comfortable to lie there together in the silence, until Grace finally asks, “So what’s your dream?”

Dani smiles, shifting a bit closer to Grace. “Well, I’ve always loved flowers…”

  
  


~

  
  


She’s become the girl who mopes in the corner at parties. If Diego could see her now, he’d laugh and tell her to lighten up, but the thought of it only makes her feel heavier.

It’s a night of celebration for their group of resistance fighters. They were successful in destroying a big Legion database in Nevada, and everyone is keen to let loose, just for one night, and savour this small victory. Dani can’t blame them—she only wishes it still felt that easy for her to feel so free. But they deserve a night of fun, and it makes her happy to see them all so full of life.

She breathes a little easier when Grace rounds a corner and locks eyes with her, two beers in hand. “I don’t even know how Raúl found these,” she shouts over the music, passing one to Dani. Alcohol’s been an increasingly rare and coveted commodity since Judgment Day, not that Dani’s minded going without. She accepts the drink, though, and _clinks_ her bottle against Grace’s with a laugh. They each take a swig, and Dani has to admit she likes the feel of it going straight to her head after so long since her last drink. She begins to feel a bit more relaxed.

The music is too loud for them to talk much, and Dani can tell Grace feels a little out of place. She knows Grace was never one to party much—even at that bar she followed Grace to, once, she could see it wasn’t her scene. Wordlessly, Dani leads them to a slightly quieter spot around a corner, out of sight of their revelling comrades. “Better?” she asks, as Grace leans back against the wall of the building where they’re all staying tonight, visibly more comfortable now.

“Sorry,” Grace laughs. “I don’t know what to do with myself at these things.” 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Dani reassures her. “We’re fine right here.” 

“You don’t wanna get back out there and celebrate with the others?” asks Grace, a hint of the shyness she doesn’t usually show around Dani anymore creeping back into her words and the way she holds herself. 

“No,” she says, so sincerely that she wonders a second later if she’s said too much. Grace looks at her like she’s trying to figure her out, and all the love and guilt she feels every day begin to war with each other inside her heart again.

“Well, good,” Grace finally says, “seeing as I can’t dance, anyway.” 

“I don’t believe that,” says Dani. “I’ve seen the way you move.” When Grace fights, she lives up to her name in ways that take Dani’s breath away. She knows she’s saying things she probably shouldn’t, but it’s like she can’t help herself all of a sudden. Maybe it’s the beer. 

“Fighting’s different from dancing,” Grace points out. “I don’t have any sense of rhythm.”

“It’s not so hard,” says Dani. “I could show you, if you want.” 

Grace shakes her head. “No, I’m hopeless,” she insists. “It’d be a lost cause.”

“No such thing,” says Dani.

Grace bites her lip in a way that makes Dani’s heart start doing jumping jacks. Before she can really believe it, Grace is putting her beer down and moving closer to her, looking at her with the same trust in her eyes that’s always reserved just for Dani. She tries not to think about all that it means as she puts her drink down, too.

“You just have to follow the beat,” says Dani, beginning to sway her hips. Grace is openly staring at her, not even trying it herself, and Dani has a hard time hiding her satisfaction. But she needs Grace to move, too. “Like this,” she says, placing her hands on Grace’s hips, gently nudging them side to side. Grace is a little stiff, but ever willing to learn from Dani, and given a moment, she starts getting the hang of it. Dani slides her arms around Grace’s waist, and before long she feels Grace’s encircle her, too. They find their rhythm the way they do everything—together.

The song changes, and it throws Grace off. “Here,” says Dani, moving Grace’s hips again. Then, slowly, she glides her hand down one of Grace’s long arms to take Grace’s hand in hers, extending their joined arms out beside them. Grace falls into the rhythm, again, and it distracts Dani, momentarily, from the sense of familiarity closing in on her.

Then it hits her: she remembers Grace doing this for her, standing behind her and adjusting her body, moving her arms into place as she taught her how to shoot. Grace is different, this time around, yet the strength Dani feels in those arms wrapped around her is just the same. It isn’t about physical strength, but it’s something that comes from within Grace, and the way she is with Dani. She’s still trying to protect her, Dani realizes. It scares her more than anything, because she couldn’t take it if anything happened to Grace again.

She tries to shake off the dull panic that’s begun settling in her gut, to live in the moment, instead, but she can tell Grace sees the look that’s come over her. She pulls Grace closer, anyway, and keeps on dancing. Just for tonight, Dani wants to pretend that this is all there is.

  
  


~

  
  


They’ve been laying low outside what’s left of Vegas for a couple of weeks, and the whole team is getting tired and agitated in the heat. Grace has been been wishing aloud they could drive out to the coast, but there’s preparation to be done before they make their next move against Legion.

They all split up on one of their usual late night supply runs, raiding whatever buildings they can find for food, medicine, and clothes. Grace and Dani have been making their way through an abandoned suburb, emptying the pantries of families who’ve long since fled, though they do so with more than a healthy measure of guilt.

They haven’t had much success tonight, so expectations are low as they hop the fence between two backyards. The first thing Dani notices is the line of rose bushes bordering the opposite fence, somehow still thriving, blooming in triumphant pink. _Grace and beauty._ What are the odds? She’s making her way over for a closer look when Grace says, “Is that a pool house? Damn, these people are rich.”

She’s right—there’s an entire enclosed pool house in this huge backyard. Dani follows Grace as she finds the door unlocked. Inside, there’s a large, gorgeous pool, looking spotlessly clean even though there’s no telling how long it’s been since anyone’s tended to it.

“Do you wanna…” Grace trails off.

“Swim?” asks Dani. She still has the odd nightmare about being trapped underwater with Sarah, frantically swimming to the surface and looking all around her for Grace. She remembers what happened moments later, too, and finds she’d rather think of something else altogether.

“It’s just been so hot,” says Grace. “Never mind, it’s stupid. We have things to—what are you doing?”

Dani takes her combat boots off, unceremoniously tossing them to the side. “What are you waiting for?” she asks. She won’t let the past ruin what’s right in front of her. All that matters is the two of them here, now. She pulls her shirt up over her head, and politely pretends not to notice the way Grace looks at her body.

She strips down to her bra and underwear and dives into the pool before Grace can say another word. The water is cool and unbelievably refreshing—Grace was right, this _was_ a good idea. “You coming?” she asks when she breaks the surface.

Grace’s shyness has returned, even though they’ve undressed in front of each other loads of times, living and travelling together in such close quarters. She peels away her tank top to reveal the sports bra underneath, and now it’s Dani’s turn to stare. She wonders, idly, if Grace has any idea how beautiful she is.

A moment later, Grace is in the water, too, swimming a quick length of the pool and back all in one breath. She already looks calmer than she has all day, which makes it all worth it for Dani.

“It’s so nice,” she says adorably, swimming closer to Dani.

“It is,” says Dani, watching droplets fall from the ends of Grace’s short hair down to her strong shoulders, muscles rippling under her skin as she treads water.

They’re quiet for a long time, only the sounds of the water there to drown out the beating of Dani’s heart. Grace is staring at her lips, now, and it feels as though they’ve crossed a line there’s no turning back from.

“Dani,” says Grace, so softly Dani’s almost not sure how she hears it.

The tension between them builds until it reaches a breaking point. They’re touching, now, under the water, and their faces are closer than ever. It’s impossible to say who leans in first, but neither of them cares as their lips finally meet.

It’s soft and slow, at first, an exploration that’s long overdue. Not even the initial taste of chlorine can ruin how good it feels for Dani. Below the surface, she feels herself wrapping her legs around Grace’s waist, as Grace’s arms find their way around her and hold her close. She feels as though she’s drowning in Grace and the way she makes her feel, and she never wants it to stop.

When it starts getting more difficult to keep themselves afloat, Dani backs Grace into the edge of the pool, holding them both against the wall for leverage. One of Grace’s hands is tangled in Dani’s sopping hair now, and she whimpers into their kiss at the feel of it.

“Dani,” Grace whispers again when they break apart to breathe. Her name sounds like music coming from Grace’s lips, and she wants to hear it again and again.

Grace moves toward her once more, when suddenly everything hits Dani all at once. This is everything she’s wanted for so long now, but there’s a reason she hasn’t let herself really think about it. She’s wondered, before, what Grace really meant when she told her she _knew_ her. She’s had her suspicions about the future together that they’ll never have, now, the one from that Grace’s timeline. But what did it all come to? She’s certain the Grace she met back then loved her—and that Grace died for her. She can’t let that happen again.

She wrenches herself away from Grace, and the loss of contact instantly leaves her freezing in the water. The look of confusion on Grace’s face makes her feel even worse. “What’s wrong?” Grace asks, her concern making Dani feel even guiltier.

“I’m sorry,” says Dani, refusing to look at her.

“Sorry?”

It takes everything she has to stop herself from crying. “We should head back,” says Dani. “We’ve been gone too long already.”

She won’t look back to see the hurt she knows must be written all over Grace’s face. She plunges back beneath the water and swims over to the stepladder, letting the chlorine sting her eyes that are already threatening to betray everything she’s feeling.

On the ride home, with Grace behind the wheel, Dani asks if she’s alright. Grace says she’s fine, never taking her eyes off the road. But they don’t sleep together that night, and Dani feels like something essential to her has been lost.

  
  


~

  
  


The months pass uneventfully. They’re somewhere outside Salt Lake City when the first snowfall of the year rolls through, and no one is really prepared. If they weren’t already sharing a bed again, it would be a necessity now, if only for the warmth. As it is, things went back to normal fairly quickly after that night in the pool. They still lie next to each other most nights, and they still never talk about any of it. And it’s okay, for the most part. Sometimes Dani can hear everything they aren’t saying like a roar between them, and she knows Grace hears it, too. They’re always on the same page, after all. But they avoid breaking each other’s hearts once and for all in favour of maintaining this nice, if slightly uneasy, equilibrium.

Doing battle in the winter is a whole new challenge. Last year, they stayed near Southern California for most of the winter. Now their army’s being forced to combat the elements on top of the machines that want them all dead. A few of them nearly died of exposure one night when they got trapped outside without sufficient winter gear. Jonathan, one of the first members to join their team, lost a couple of fingers to frostbite. They’re doing better now, but the snow and the cold make the whole fight feel more brutal, and it’ll be impossible to get back out of Utah until conditions clear up at least a little.

Meanwhile, they’re discovering that the area has become more of a Legion stronghold than they thought. There are strikes nearly every night, making it difficult to get much sleep or gain any ground at all. It’s become a battle simply to survive, and Dani hates it. She knows Grace is frustrated, too. 

She worries it’s making Grace more reckless. She’s been fighting more aggressively the last few days, and Dani’s afraid something bad is going to happen. Her fear only grows when they go out for routine recon and wind up trapped, waiting out a strike by a Legion tank rolling through the area.

They wait in agonizing silence, a mix of determination and barely concealed fear in both their gazes whenever they meet. The wind whistles through the ruins of an old warehouse they’re hiding in, the only sound breaking up the horrid monotony of the intermittent machine gunfire outside.

But the minutes stretch into nearly an hour, and as the sun goes down, the temperature is steadily dropping. Dani can sense Grace’s impatience, too. She knows Grace brought the grenades, and if she can make one good enough shot, she _might_ be able to destroy the tank. If she misses, though, it’s all over for both of them.

Grace locks eyes with her, a look on her face now that scares the shit out of Dani.

“Run out the back door when I move,” Grace whispers. 

“Grace, _no!_ ” whispers Dani, but it’s too late. Grace is already barrelling out into the street, launching a grenade at the tank. Grace is fully exposed out there, clearly hoping to draw the tank away from Dani if she isn’t able to blow it up.

Dani has other plans. She runs out after Grace, just in time to see the grenade explode a few feet short of its target. The tank isn’t even dented, and it only takes a moment for its gun to set its sights on its would-be assailant.

Grace doesn’t hesitate, just like Dani taught her. She bolts _most_ of the way out of the gun’s range, but it isn’t enough. Dani sees her take the hit, and she doesn’t even hear herself screaming as she runs toward her, though she feels it later from the rawness of her throat.

She isn’t sure how they manage to get inside and avoid the tank’s ongoing fire, or how they make it out the back door and back to their base without being followed. Grace seems both determined and a little bit dazed, and Dani is more panicked than she’s felt since she watched her brother die in front of her. 

They’re lucky: the bullet only grazed Grace’s shoulder. Dani takes Grace’s coat off of her in stoic silence, undressing her down to her undershirt before starting to clean the wound. Grace doesn’t dare say a word to her, already knowing how Dani will respond. She grits her teeth and bears the sting of the peroxide, and the stitches Dani slowly, carefully makes.

It’s Dani who breaks the silence as she’s finishing Grace’s stitches. “What the hell were you thinking?” she bites out.

Grace hisses as Dani pulls her last stitch through. “I was thinking we were both going to freeze to death in there if we waited much longer,” she says.

“So you thought you’d get yourself shot instead?” asks Dani, her voice rising as she begins to wrap Grace’s shoulder.

“I had to get you out of there,” says Grace, unapologetic.

“You could have _died!_ ” Dani exclaims, yelling now. “Don’t you get that? Don’t you get how stupid that was? You cannot do things like that, Grace. I can’t lose you, not again!”

“Again?” asks Grace, and Dani’s heart drops. “What do you mean, ‘again?’”

“Just forget it,” says Dani, turning away, but Grace grabs her arm and holds her in place.

“No, tell me,” says Grace. “What are you saying?”

Tears well up in Dani’s eyes as she looks back at her.

“I go back, don’t I?” asks Grace. “The time travel program. It works, doesn’t it?” The resistance has been buzzing about the time travel tech a scientist in L.A. has claimed to be working on. People won’t stop talking about whether it might be possible to go back in time and stop Legion from even being created, but most of them don’t even believe it really works. Only Dani already knows the truth, and she never planned on telling Grace about it.

“No, you don’t,” she says. “You _did_. Not again.”

“But I did go back,” says Grace, reading it all in Dani’s expression. “And something happened to me.” She looks at Dani long and hard. “I died, didn’t I?”

Dani crumbles, a tear rolling down her cheek. “You were protecting me.”

Grace considers that for a long moment, a strangely serene look on her face. “Good,” she says at last.

That sets Dani off again. “How can you _say_ that?!” she demands. “I never asked you to die for me! I don’t want that! Don’t you get it, Grace? I _need_ you!”

This time, it is indisputably Grace who comes crashing into her, but Dani doesn’t try to stop her. Dani kisses her fiercely, but she can feel Grace’s calmness, and it only pisses her off more. She pulls away only to grip Grace’s face in both hands and look her in the eye. “You don’t get to die for me. Never again.”

“Okay,” says Grace, a dreamy quality to her voice.

“You promise me,” Dani insists.

“I promise,” says Grace, lunging toward Dani’s neck, but Dani stops her short. 

“I need you to mean it.”

“I do,” says Grace. She sinks to her knees in front of Dani. “Let me show you how much.”

  
  


~

  
  


The first thing Dani sees when she wakes up is a small framed painting of a flower on the cracked wall. They’ve only been staying in this room a short time, but it still surprises her that she never noticed it before. It’s a snowdrop—an early sign that winter is coming to an end. Dani feels that same hope blooming inside her, too.

Grace’s skin is warm against hers, and she feels safer than she can even fathom in her arms. Grace wakes up a minute later, and her smile is more than Dani ever could have wished for.

She used to spend hours thinking about the future she and Grace might have had together, once, the one that sent Grace back to her in the first place. There have been times she’s mourned the memories that Grace and that Dani must have made together, longing for just a glimpse of them. But in the end, she knew she was making a worthwhile trade in her efforts to change the future—Grace’s life for those memories. It meant they’d have the chance to make new ones together.

Lying here with Grace now, Dani knows their new future has already begun, and she vows to do whatever it takes to protect it.

**Author's Note:**

> Small notes:
> 
> I made sociology one of Grace’s majors as a small shoutout to Mag from Dollhouse, another sapphic character who was studying sociology before the apocalypse hit.
> 
> I learned about snowdrops representing hope from Angela and Brennan on Bones. I guess this is just my gay hope flower now. I did a lot of googling about the other flower language stuff, and "grace under pressure" is apparently a Hemingway quote. I only found a few sites that tie that quote to freesias, but I liked it, so I used it. That they can also represent trust is obviously hugely meaningful when it comes to Dani and Grace.
> 
> I wanted to write about Grace not knowing how to dance after watching the Lilly Singh interview where they talked about Mackenzie having no rhythm. I realize Kelly and Yorkie have basically the same scene in San Junipero, but I couldn’t help myself.
> 
> Edited to add: I (terribly) forgot to credit The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series for a couple of ideas in this story. Sarah not remembering what she wanted to do with her life before is taken directly from a conversation in episode 1x03 of the show, and one of the lines I added to Grace's description of Judgment Day is a direct quote from a similar scene in episode 2x04. If you loved this movie but haven't seen the show, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's what got me into the Terminator franchise in the first place.


End file.
